It's OK to miss a turn!

My mistake Friday was trying to get over 3 lanes so I could pull into a shopping center parking lot. I was going too fast, hit the front brake when I shouldn't have and the front tire slid on some gravel at the lot entrance. I fell down on my right side.

The frame slider did its job but I still have some scratches on the oil pump cover, top case (right side), bar ends, and the fairing near the headlight.

Of course this is one of the few times I wasn't wearing my boots so I have a small bruise on my right ankle and a bit of a raspberry on my right hip. I usually wear mesh riding pants with armor over my jeans but not that day. Otherwise I would have been completely fine. My jacket and gloves did their jobs.

Things I learned:

1. ATGATT!!!!! I skip wearing my riding pants and my boots once and look what happens!
2. Be patient: no reason I had to get over, I could have gone down to the next intersection and come back. Stupid.
3. Be smart with the brakes. There is gravel and loose stones at parking lot entrances that can cause a front wheel slide if you use your brakes improperly.

I have to replace my frame slider but I can live with the scratches on the engine and fairing. Only my pride was hurt but it's a valuable lesson for me anyway.

Damn well at least you were able to walk and ride away, and you also learned some good lessons:thumbup:. Thanks for sharing so we can hopefully avoid the same mistakes.

Ouch! Will have to be on the lookout for gravel in parking lot entrances. Thanks for the tip. Hope you are ok and the bike sounds not too bad.

Glad your ok......those little whoopsy's, have a tendancy to remind us of just how quickly things can go pear shaped, and how important it is to always wear your protective riding gear....thanks for sharing.

Thanks for relating your experience. I have had couple like that, not falling, and the cars close to me seemed to see the potential fall before I did and backed off. If they haden't I would have been hit once for sure entering a gas lot :squid:

Live and learn...

ya i miss a lot of turns because if i am ever second guessing myself i decide to miss the turn by default.

i took a spill on some gravel doing exactly what you did last year. lesson learnt.

aj_fz6 said:

My mistake Friday was trying to get over 3 lanes so I could pull into a shopping center parking lot. I was going too fast, hit the front brake when I shouldn't have and the front tire slid on some gravel at the lot entrance. I fell down on my right side.

The frame slider did its job but I still have some scratches on the oil pump cover, top case (right side), bar ends, and the fairing near the headlight.

Of course this is one of the few times I wasn't wearing my boots so I have a small bruise on my right ankle and a bit of a raspberry on my right hip. I usually wear mesh riding pants with armor over my jeans but not that day. Otherwise I would have been completely fine. My jacket and gloves did their jobs.

Things I learned:

1. ATGATT!!!!! I skip wearing my riding pants and my boots once and look what happens!
2. Be patient: no reason I had to get over, I could have gone down to the next intersection and come back. Stupid.
3. Be smart with the brakes. There is gravel and loose stones at parking lot entrances that can cause a front wheel slide if you use your brakes improperly.

I have to replace my frame slider but I can live with the scratches on the engine and fairing. Only my pride was hurt but it's a valuable lesson for me anyway.

Click to expand...

I thought I'd share a VERY similar story that happened to me... I learned a ton from it and ideally you will too, whether or not you can relate.

This all happened almost exactly one year ago. I have a pal who at the time was a more experienced and better rider than I was, and I was brand new to motorcycling, with just 3 months of riding under my belt (my FZ6 is my first bike).

I was riding with this pal (first time riding with him ever)... He rides a Ninja 1200 and I ride a FZ6 (of course). We took off from my place to a nearby town (him leading). I started to feel uncomfortable because he was really gunning it and riding like a SQUID/hooligan (cutting in and out of traffic, passing in oncoming lane of a one lane divided like crazy, reaching speeds of 200km/h, a few small wheelies, etc.)... Still I pushed myself and kept the pace with him, figuring I'd be fine...

Once we got to the town we pulled over and decided to head back because it looked like rain was coming. So on the way back it was more of the same - him riding like a lunatic and me pushing to keep up... About halfway back I almost got smoked head-on trying to pass in the oncoming lane without really being very safe and checking it out first... I was trying to keep up with my pal on the one lane divided but fortunately the car I was passing saw my predicament and moved to the shoulder, giving me room to avoid the head-on... For that I am eternally thankful... THAT should have been a warning for me to chill the hell out and get back into my comfort zone of riding at that point, but no, on I went... Here's where the fun begins.

On the way back we came back into our home city on a major highway and there were various offramps in the right lane for various roads, each about a km apart... We were in the middle of 3 lanes riding in formation, he was leading, we were going about the limit, maybe 10 over (80 km/h)... All of a sudden he makes a HARD right turn across the middle and right lane to catch the turnoff that is approaching, and instinctively I try and follow... The problem is he barely made the turn and with my novice status, little experience, and resulting slower reaction time, it didn't take me long to realize, mid-lean in the turn, that I was in for a bad deal here and headed into trouble...

I didn't panic. I realized that I was going to crash, so I straightened up out of the lean and thresholded the front brake (and locked the rear - amateur mistake)... Even though the rear was locked, I was keeping it upright, however I was unable to turn... And directly ahead of me was a construction barricade. To make matters worse I was riding on loose gravel at this point... So I knew turning was a bad deal, and my goal became to slow down as much as possible before impact, and not lowside and end up slamming my body into the barricade, versus the better option of flipping over it... This all went in slow motion for me.

I got my speed down to about 45-50km/h before I hit the barricade, still on my bike and bike still upright. My bike stopped instantly from the impact and jarred right, went down on the right side, and slid into the offramp lane that I was originally trying to connect with... The truck that was coming in that lane fortunately reacted in time and stopped before running my bike over... I did a front flip over the handlebars, missed the barricade (woo!) and landed on my right shoulder, slid about 50 feet bouncing all about, and came to a rest, the whole while thinking "this can't be happening to ME, I must be dreaming, please don't let this be happening to ME."

Instantly I stand up - I'm on a huge adrenaline surge and feel no pain... I felt pretty good all things considered as I was wearing all of the gear (as I always do, ATGATT). My buddy had seen this all happen in his mirror and had pulled over up ahead on the offramp and was running towards me. The very kind guy in the truck who managed to not run over my bike got out and helped me set it upright on the kickstand... And then I got to assess the damage as the adrenaline wore off and the pain started to kick in.

Thanks to wearing all of my gear, the only "road rash" i had were little perfectly diamond shaped cuts in my right elbow where the mesh from my jacket was ground into my skin while sliding. I had a bruised knee, bruised ankle, VERY sore shoulder, headache, and crushed thumbnail, but NO cuts and scratches or road rash, nothing broken. My textile pants ripped a little at the right hip but never got through to my skin or under clothing. Satisfied that I would live to see another day, I then went and assessed the bike.

I got off pretty lucky. I decimated the front cowling (and mounting brackets), it was cracked up badly and bent almost 45 degrees to the left. My handlebars, forks, tires, and frame were all fine (thank goodness). I had destroyed the handlebar end on the right side, the passenger grab bar, the front brake was bent, the right foot peg was bent, the rear brake lever was almost bent in half, and I scraped up the crankcase quite badly. My heart sank as I saw all the damage, fearing my bike was a total write-off.

Fortunately, it turned out to be driveable, no bent frame or forks, and $1400 and about 5 hours of work later I replaced and repaired everything. The only remaining damage is a small dent in the gas tank on the left side (not sure how that happened) and no paint damage. Otherwise you'd never know that this had happened to me.

Now, what did I learn, and what should you learn?

0. Do not panic, ever. Keep focused and do whatever you can to minimize the oncoming damage to yourself in any situation. Never fixate on the problem, instead fixate on the solution and have the guts to try it.
1. Look up "object fixation" and make sure you avoid doing it (I did on the barricade and it definitely didn't help... In hindsight I think I could have avoided it if I looked where I wanted to be and didn't lock the rear tire)
2. ATGATT. No exceptions. You never know when you'll crash, I wiped out < 1 km from my house on a road I ride every single day. It also saved my precious tattoo (hooray!) and a ton of skin damage, leaving only bruises.
3. NEVER ride out of your comfort zone/level... If you're riding with a buddy who is pushing your limits, ask him to tone it down. If he isn't happily willing to do so, then he is not a person you need to ride with. Period.
4. (relates to 3) Know your limit and ride within it. Don't do careless crap (like pass in oncoming lane without really looking first) in order to try and keep up to others. It's bad news.
5. Learn threshold braking so well that its an auto reflex vs a thought process. Also learn the rear brake well enough to avoid locking the back tire in all circumstances.
6. Never rush a missed turn, you can always pull a U-turn down the road and come back, or take the next turn. Patience is key.
7. Learn to ride on gravel; how the traction differs and how to effectively turn/recover on it when it is possible to do so.

And most importantly:

If you do wipe out, don't let it discourage you. A few weeks later, after I healed up and repaired the bike, I got back on it. I was hesitant and it took me a while to get confident leaning into twisties again, but eventually I did and a year later I can happily say that I've not even had one other close call... I feel like I learned from my mistake, am 100x better a rider than I was at that time, and will never make that judgment error again.

And a sweet bit of irony for you:

About a month ago that same pal and I went for another ride, this time I knew my limits and didn't screw around. We stopped at a gas station, and pulling out he decided to crack 'er open midway through turning out of the station, trying to show off, true to the SQUID ideals... Right into a rear wheel traction loss and down he went with a highside at about 20km/h. I had to laugh because it became evident to me that I am now the better rider of the two of us.

Hope someone learns from this tale.

-Dave

Great stories with valuable lessons even for me (25 years of riding experience). It is easy to get lazy with gear or over confident with your riding skills.

Thank you very much for posting these as they are very good reminders of the things that can go wrong when you are on the road.:thumbup:

Thank You for sharing this post. It's a good reminder that none of us are exempt from making a boo boo. It takes a good man to post something like this, I don't think I would. Good for you and thanks again.:rockon:

Doc

Riders often overlook their immediate surface conditions......so it just shows that you always have to pay attention, no matter how slow or fast you are going.

I always wear my gear, including my riding pants even if I'm only going to the store just down the street for the same reason. The time I dont wear it, will probably be the day I'll need it.